Most people think the reason we need the humor genre is because we need to laugh and not take life so seriously. This is a definitely a need. However, the need for laughter doesn’t fully explain the genre. After all, many of the subgenres, like satire or black comedy, don’t necessarily elicit laughter.
Rather, the primary heart hole for humor seems to deal with the clarity of vision. For each of us are stuck within our own mind and body. Therefore, at best our perceptions are limited, and at worst, they’re completely skewed. We all understand this on some level, because we have all misunderstood another and have been misunderstood ourselves at some point. But humor takes us outside of ourselves and allows us to see ourselves. This genre makes us aware of our problems and does it in a way that doesn't make us defensive, for we reason that we aren’t as bad as the characters, at least. So the heart hole which humor fills is our need for an outside perspective.
Therefore we need to read humor to remember that we need an outside perspective from God’s Spirit, who is a Spirit of truth, and He will guide us into all truth (John 16:13).
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